This seems reasonable until you start to dig into it a little.  What about someone who doesn’t have a blog but has thousands of followers on Digg, Twitter, Stumbleupon, etc. etc.  What about Facebook, and Digg, etc who received ad revenue from Google for ads for the skin cream?  What about Google who received ad revenue for these same ads?

What about when the skin cream manufacturer offers free samples to 1000’s of people via Facebook and invites them to come back and talk about it?  This after all is the essence of social media, crowd sourcing and viral marketing.  If a few of these people make false claims is the manufacturer liable for them?

It’s very easy to see how the lawsuits will begin targeting the deep pockets of Facebook, Google etc.  But the real losers in this are the public.  Companies won’t want to promote their products via social media.  Bloggers won’t get samples to write about.  But most importantly, Companies will require bloggers to submit product reviews for approval. This will kill the independent blogger review of any product online.  How can you believe someone who had to have their article approved by the vendor?

Jeremiah Owyang will need to revise his list of sponsored blogs because they are going to go away.  Why would I or anyone else want to put our reputation on the line when we have to get the vendor’s legal approval?  If the article is critical, the vendor will pressure me to change it.  As a corporate PR person I know I will if given the opportunity to impact a blogger writing about my company’s products.  David Meerman Scott also has an interesting story on this from the perspective of book reviews.

Many will say that it’s a good thing for sponsored blog posts to go away.  But it’s not, because the largest impact will be on the small company starting out who wants to get noticed by the big boys.  They don’t have the resources to vet each article, so their lawyer will tell them not to send out free samples of that new organic soap you’ve made.  And big popular writers will not be willing to submit each article to a dozen different companies for review.  And that will be the thing that hurts us all.

I titled this article Social ME-dia because one of the great equalizers about social media is that it’s all about ME.  What I say online in Twitter, and in my blog are my responsibility.  I also write the blog for my company and what is said there is the official statement of the company.  In each case the responsibility for any statements made is squarely on the shoulders of the owner of the blog?  I am responsible for the things I say, not someone else. Making some company responsible for my actions simply because they gave me a sample of their product is foolish.

I want to publically ask my blogger collegues and the FTC to not make the deep pockets of companies responsible for this.  It has the ability to stifle and pervert the nature of internet marketing in ways that we cannot forsee.  Make the individual responsible for their words.

Anyway, I’ve just started a new series of blog posts over at the Ripple6 blog and the process I’ve used is interesting and engaging.  So I thought I’d explain what I did and how you can do the same thing- and this is for free!

I started with a panel discussion Ripple6 did at a conference.  We had a great panel with senior executives from Gannett, Procter & Gamble and Meredith (Meredith publishes; Good Housekeeping, Parents and about a bazillion other magazines).   Now I’ve been on a whole bunch of websites where they took a panel discussion video and simply posted it on the website or blog.  And even when you have a great panel it’s a big thing to ask someone to come to your site and give you 45 minutes or an hour for a video.  Short attention spans are the norm on the web and long form videos just aren’t that popular.

Another problem is some of the best stuff in a panel discussion comes at the end during the question and answer period.  But often you need a few minutes of the main section to get the background so you can understand what the questioner is asking.  This leads to a requirement of watching the whole video to get a few minutes of the best stuff.

“I suppose if your video is really, really, REALLY boring there’s not much that can be done to help it.”

One common way to fix the 45 minute video is to edit it down to 10 minutes of the best stuff.  And that was suggested to me as a way to address our video.  However, I saw a different way to do it.  There was so much excellent material in the video that I could use almost the entire thing.  But I knew no one wanted to sit through it all.  And oh by the way I’m facing the common lack of resources and funding that any Marketing department today has.

So I took a different route, I decided to chop the video into 15 different small pieces each covering a single topic.  This allows me to write a blog post on each one and allow our readers to comment on each topic.  Something that a 10 minute multi-topic “best of” reel doesn’t allow.

And with 15 little pieces I can now reorder them into a progression that makes sense. I can take that excellent question that came at the end of the panel and move it to the front of the series.  Where it now serves as an excellent intro piece, which no one foresaw as the best way to start the discussion.

The kicker here is that cutting the video into a bunch of little pieces wasn’t actually that hard.  It took a few hours of watching video to decide where to make the cuts.  And I found a few excerpts that make excellent testimonials in other places on our website.  When necessary I write a short intro piece that creates the set up needed for the viewer to understand the video.  And it wasn’t too expensive, for those of us Marketers (all of us-lol) who find ourselves on a budget now-a-days.

Now I suppose if your video is really, really, REALLY boring not much can be done to save it.  But this method gave me blog topics for 2 months and great interactive content that seems to be getting lots of people interested in the series.  The anticipation of the next post is part of the fun for people and heightens the success of the series.

I hope you enjoy my new blog at Ripple6 and I’m going to try harder to post here on 1GoodReason more often.

Tanks for reading,

Chris

PS:  Please leave a comment here if you use this idea with a link.  I’d love to see what you can do with it.

But first a nerdy side note on the story; some funny things happened when I started my research on this post.  I first turned to Google (naturally) to discover the links to Seth’s blog post.  I used the following search:

Google: link:http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/ads-are-the-new.html -site:typepad.com Which returned 0 results, surprising for Google.  MSN had the same problem, link:http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/a returning 0 results.

Yahoo however found what I was looking for: link:http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/ads-are-the-new.html -site:typepad.com = 100+ items

Next I looked at Nielsen’s Buzzmetrics tool BlogPulse which shows a nice quantity (25+) of links to the blog post. The problem being they missed the most important one- mine!  Now I’m not a Top 100 blogger by any means, but I do have a decent following and readership.  I’ve a got a fairly good Technorati score (220+) and Alexa Rank (322,000), so why doesn’t 1 Good Reason make it with BlogPulse?

This then led me to look at Seth’s blog post again and wonder about the Trackbacks.  It seemed that the only Trackbacks Seth was showing were for complimentary blog posts.  So I wrote to him and asked him about it; Seth answered that he approves “EVERY SINGLE trackback that comes through typepad”.  Which made me wonder why my trackback wasn’t coming through Seth’s Typepad blog.

There I discovered a difference in the way that WordPress handles trackbacks form other WordPress blogs, compared to the way they handle them with other bloging platforms.  Let’s skip the tech stuff and just say you should be sure to include trackbacks for blogs in your posting, it’s a pain but worth it.

And finally a last point about Seth’s blog.  In my correspondence with Seth I suggested to him that revisit his commenting system.  Several years ago, Joseph Jaffe over at Jaffe Juice commented that Seth’s blog didn’t take comments.  That’s my first recollection of this, perhaps you have others?  But since then I’ve been not alone in the impression that Seth holds himself to be above the fray, and doesn’t accept comments on his blog.  Well I found that is wrong.  Seth does accept comments, it’s just very hard to find them in the 8 point small print at the footer of each blog post.  So I would suggest to Seth that unless he doesn’t want people to comment, he should make it a bit easier and more apparent.

CORRECTION: Seth, doesn’t take comments on his blog.  I was confused by the comments link on the Diggs for the post, where there are a number of comments.  Seth explains his reasoning for not taking comments here.  After reading that post I have to say that I don’t agree with Seth.  Thinking about the reactions of others to your writing, or speaking, is called being “SOCIAL.”  And that’s what Social Media is all about.

Here are the main articles I’ve found surrounding this issue:  (this list is stolen, in part from BlogPulse, and I’m not sorry because you didn’t list my blog.)

• 08/22/2008 The stupidest thing Seth Godin ever said. (from: THIS VERY BLOG!)
• 08/22/2008 Seth Godin Wants to Cheat Advertisers with Fake Clicks (from: This Feed Powered by FeedBurner.com)
  • 08/25/2008 Seth Godin May Be Costing You Money (from: More Than Scratch The Surface)
  • 08/26/2008 Bloggers deserve real tips not stolen goods! (from: Joe Hall)
  • 08/26/2008 Do NOT Click Here (from: Apogee Weblog)
• 08/22/2008 Please leave your €1 at the sidebar (from: Carl-Johan Hunefalk » Internet Marketing Strategy by Carl-Johan Hunefalk)
• 08/22/2008 The Thank You Click (from: SortiPreneur)
• 08/22/2008 Is Seth Godin encouraging click fraud? (from: BlogStorm)
  • 08/22/2008 Controversy: Seth Godin Asks Blog Readers to Treat Ads as the New Online Tip Jar and Click (from: Gauravonomics)
  • 08/22/2008 Not Seth Godin’s Best Advice (from: Ask Shane.org)
  • 08/23/2008 Seth Godin Mis-Speaks on Click Thru (from: Blog To Great)
• 08/22/2008 Ads the New Online Tip Jar? Maybe in Small Quantities (from: The Daily Igniter Customer Analytics Blog)
• 08/22/2008 Online tip jars (from: My Digital Life)
• 08/22/2008 Click Fraud? (from: Mining the Store)
• 08/22/2008 Do You Know How To Thank A Blogger? (from: YourHRGuy.com)
• 08/22/2008 Online Ads Aren’t Quite the New Tip Jar (from: Bootstrap It!)
• 08/22/2008 In the economy of ideas (from: Perspective 2.0)
• 08/22/2008 Friday Stupid (from: Tech Soapbox)
  • 08/24/2008 Should You Click an Ad to “Support” a Blog? (from: Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog)
• 08/22/2008 Seth Godin vs Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (from: karchesky)
• 08/22/2008 Seth Godin wiffs one. (from: The Disciplined Marketer)
• 08/22/2008 The Seth Godin Tip Jar (from: Some Rights Reserved)
• 08/22/2008 Seth Godin: Help Publishers; Screw Advertisers (from: freddie.dot.see.eh? two.point.oh)
• 08/23/2008 links for 2008-08-23 (from: contentious.com)
• 08/25/2008 Web Ads 2.0 (from: Buzz, Balls & Hype )

However this list is not nearly complete because it missed among others, this post by Joseph Jaffe.

So what do you think?

OH yea!  Be sure to look for next weeks BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Tanks for reading,

Chris

Seth today proposes that we should simply click on ads on blogs that we like.

Seth Godin’s Blog: “If you like what you’re reading, click an ad to say thanks.”

Seth’s post today promotes theft of services!

There is no difference between Seth’s post today, and a Bank Manager telling you how to successfully kite checks.

A store security guard giving you advice on how to shoplift.

Seth is a Marketer.  And a very internet savvy one at that.  His site search lists 136 results for Website Design, and 246 for SEO.  So Seth knows how the internet works.  He especially knows how Pay Per Click (PPC) works as evidenced by this post written back in 2006 when he still explained technical details, now he just does “big picture, high level, strategy stuff.”  I’m telling you this so you know that Seth understands the details of PPC and the details of how the PPC economy works.

Seth today proposes that we should simply click on ads on blogs that we like.  This will pay the website owner for the free content they have provided.  This way only the advertisers will have to pay for the useless clicks they receive. Seth even goes on to say that, “Pretty simple, but not an accepted online protocol, at least not yet.”

For a big picture guy like Seth this a really stupid idea. For an experienced online marketing expert like Seth- this borders on criminal conspiracy.

On successful sites people start clicking all sorts of ads.  Good advertisers leave these sites in droves because the ROI drops out the bottom.  Click Fraud becomes the accepted Standard Operational Procedure for people to do business on the web, if this becomes “an accepted online protocol.”

Just to clear up any confusion here is Google’s take on the idea: (quoted from the Adwords Help section

Google defines invalid clicks as:

• Manual clicks intended to increase your advertising costs or to increase profits for website owners hosting your ads
• Clicks by automated tools, robots, or other deceptive software
• Extraneous clicks which provide no value to the advertiser, such as the second click of a double-click

Don’t be fooled by Google’s spin, “invalid clicks” is CLICK FRAUD.  Seth’s idea is to promote Click Fraud as a way to encourage Bloggers to write more.

Maybe SEO’s should Google Bomb Seth? Seth Godin is a thief.

A Better Alternative

Hey Seth, why don’t you suggest that we enter a friend’s name on a subscription for a good blog?  That’s good for the blog and good for the environment.  How about building things up instead of tearing them down, eh Seth?

What do you think?

Tanks for reading,

Chris

Variety the Children’s Charity

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the word “conversation” is opposite of the root word “versus“. Versus, as in two teams fighting each other (NY Giants vs. NE Patriots for example in the epic Superbowl just past) means; to turn against, so conversation means to actively turn towards. Therefore conversation is the reverse of opposing, hence the title of today’s blog.

Or in a more literal sense, "versus" means to turn away, as in; turning away from him. (It’s actually an archaic sailing term.) "Con" as a modifier means to reverse the meaning of the root word. So "con-versus" means to reverse turning away from, or to reverse your reversal. "Tion" as a modifier means the "the act of" or "the action of". So finally, "con-versa-tion" means the act of reversing your turning away from, or to actively not turn away from. Originally "conversation" meant "to live with" or literally "to turn about with". Interestingly, in the middle ages the meaning evolved into; "having dealings with others" or "the manner of conducting oneself in the world". Later it evolved into a synonym for "sexual intercourse" but I think that can be said of most words at one point in time or another. I hope I’ve cleared that up for you.

In business today the hot topic is social media and social networking. Everyone is talking about how you must have a conversation with your customers. And, unfortunately like the old joke about the weather, everyone’s talking about it and no one is doing anything about it.

Well, I’m happy to say that this situation has changed. In the second book of the series The Age of Conversation, the masterminds Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton have drawn together 237 authors from across the blogosphere discuss how to have this conversation.

Despite the fact that it brings their judgement into question, Drew and Gavin have allowed me to contribute to this masterwork. So, while some 1/237th of the piece may be less than stellar, the majority of the compilation will be excellent reading. And the best part of it is that all of the profits from the book go to Variety the Children’s Charity. (Which has nothing to do with Varitey Newspaper or Hollywood in general.) Variety has a simple mission, “Variety the Children’s Charity is dedicated to promoting and protecting the health and well-being of children around the world.”

Below are all of the wonderful bloggers who contributed to the Age of Conversation II:

Now click on one of these blogs below to learn something else new and most likely much more useful than etymology:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

BLUF: doing anything extremely well is a lot harder than it looks. The corollary is making mistakes or doing something poorly can make that “it looks so easy to do” thing seem simple. It rarely is.

I have two cats, or rather, two cats live with my family and I. We would love to have a dog but they are not allowed in our condominium. Now, I’m a DIY’er (Do It Yourselfer) and I’m constantly doing things around the house. Several years ago I created a built in catbox that neatly hides the litter tray in our laundry room so the cats have a nice place that is clean and not so out in the open. This litter tray served it’s (not so noble) purpose for several years. However recently it has begun to have problems, specifically it leaks. I’ll not go into graphic details, and I’ll skip the Flickr photos to spare your sensibilities.

So I’ve decided to replace it with something more…effective shall we say? Not wanting to revisit this particular issue again in the near or not so near future, I decided to go with a store bought plastic cat litter box for our particular needs.

I started using the new plastic store bought litterbox this weekend. And I discovered something surprising- it’s a hell of a lot better than my homemade one!

What is there about litterbox technology that’s so amazing? I’ll just share with you that the shiny smooth surface is much easier to scoop things out of and I’ll leave it at that.

But the real point here is that we often see things which are apparently easy but which in fact are not. Getting the price right on a can of beans in the supermarket. Getting one price right isn’t hard, getting the price right on the 50,000 items a typical supermarket sells, every single day, is hard.

Why should you care? The problem lies when you view a competitor, or a vendor failing at something that looks easy but isn’t. This leads you to underestimate the ease with which you can replace them. Which leads to heartache, and headache.

As you watch the Olympics think about your competitors or suppliers and how they make things that are hard look easy. In the Olympics we see the best athletes in the world doing amazing things and making it look easy. There are everyday people doing hard things well, and that makes it look easy. Don’t be fooled, it’s not easy.

Give me one good reason why you think what you do is much harder than it looks.

Tanks for reading.
Chris

Not one of my proudest moments, I let my emotions get away from me.  A few weeks ago I wrote this blog post about a very stupid, biased postcard I received in the mail.  Now I’ve received the response from the postcard’s author.  And I’ve decided to make lemonade of the whole thing and look at the situation as a lesson in crisis management for small business owners.  I’ll do my best to keep my prejudice against an obviously prejudiced person out of the analysis.

Case Study in Small Business Crisis Management

Background:

Small business owner, Jack Lefkowitz sent out a postcard which was evidently prepared in-house.  The postcard has several significant flaws:

• The postcard contains language that some of the recipients find offensive and possibly exposes the businessman to legal issues.
• A blogger (yours truly) takes the issue and publicizes it.

Now what does the small business owner do?

• Whom should one contact and secure advice from before proceeding?
• How should you best respond to these types of attacks, valid or not?
• What is the best way to frame your response?

What Happened, The Real Response:

Mr. Lefkowitz responded with a follow up letter to the same mailing list.  The complete 4 page letter is scanned into a PDF file here: mailing-from-jack-lefkowitz. I apologize for the low quality of the scan, but it reflects the low quality of the actual letter received.  And yes the scan is in color the letter is black and white photocopy quality.  The photo and the highlights were actually photocopied at such poor quality as to make them nearly illegible.

Selected Excerpts:

Headline: “Why Is This Man So Upset?”

Opening Paragraph: “Last week a post card was mailed out to you notifying you about a property located at … is being put up for auction due to partnership dissolution.  It offered you a great deal to earn $10,000 if you were able to get a buyer that settles. and on the same note, get the neighbor you wished for yourself.”

Subhead #1: “Sounds wonderful doesn’t it?  So why is the man so upset here?  Who is he anyway?”

Subhead #2: “THIS IS WHY JACK IS SO UPSET!!! HE WAS SIMPLY MIS UNDERSTOOD!!!”

Footer Callout (highlighted with dark background): “This mansion is for any person who wishes to enjoy leisure and comfort in a dream luxurious home and live an exceptional life?”

Page 2: (primarily a repeat of the home ad please refer to the PDF for details.

Page 3: “I’m sure you’ll love it once you see it, but as a Neighbor what benefit do you have by recommending a buyer?”

Page 4: Blank

Page 5: Copy of this article from Florida Today.com.  About a swingers club that is being evicted from a rented house in Melbourne FL.  With an attached Post-It note saying, “This is what he’s trying to protect you! Read the enclosed article”

What The Experts Recommend:

I asked a number of prominent marketing bloggers and associates how they would recommend Mr. Lefkowitz proceed.  Here is a condensed version of the recommendations I received.  The full text of the replies I received from all of the bloggers gracious enough to lend me their time and expertise can be found here.

• Lewis Green He should have stopped his card after he described the house.
• David Berkowitz If he’s that concerned over it he could have tried to raise the funds to buy it. 
  
• Jason Falls Sure he was misunderstood the first time.  He’s only going to be misunderstood the second time by many because the message isn’t clear.  
• Roberta Rosenberg Outline the specific goal to be achieved.  Have a professional … write the copy, tho there is a certain charm that might be lost.
• John Johansen Determine if anyone in his market is reading the blog coverage. … If no one he’s doing business with is reading, then the controversy isn’t affecting his business.
• Josef Katz Every communication counts.  …Have an expert review and prepare your copy.  The money you spend will be worth it…
• Cam Beck 1. Shut up until he hires and consults a reputable lawyer.  2 Hire a reputable lawyer.
• Cheryl Waller…Contact the [local paper] with the story and let the newspaper bash him about the inappropriate behavior on the front page in an editorial.  The housing market is a hot topic and the newspaper loves juicy stories. Controversial?  Yes.  More free marketing for the listing?  Absolutely!
• Michelle Lamar I wish I could help you but this guy put himself out in front of the firing squad by using such extreme tactics in his ads.  
• Gavin Heaton Work with the medium in which the issues are raised– if it is a blog, respond in that format.  If you feel uncomfortable in dealing with a blogger… engage a local PR firm to act on your behalf.
• Drew McLellan Anyone who can live in a neighborhood of $2+ million homes is being bombarded with direct mail. … Odds are, most people didn’t even read the headline before it was tossed in the garbage.  Have some respect for your audience.  Don’t send them something that is photocopied to illegibility and then home that they’ll respect your opinion.
• Jason Alba Totally let it go, get on with business.  Give me a break, this the type of distraction that a real CEO doesn’t need to chase, only to dig a deeper hole. … Who wants to read a 4 page whiner’s letter?

Final Recommendations and Analysis:

The main issue I feel Jack missed is that it’s not about him.  It’s not about you or your business it’s about the feelings of your prospects & customers.  There are a dozen ways Jack could have approached this from the perspective of a recipient of his mailings.  The least effective is from the sender’s perspective.  Get out of yourself & your business (hiring someone else to write is a good way) and keep the focus on the customer’s feelings, not yours.  This entire mess would have been avoided if Jack had done that to begin with.  Instead he imposed his feelings on his target audience, bringing about this problem.

After reading all of the responses I received I believe that Jason Alba and John Johansen (among others) hit the nail on the head.  If Jack called me and asked me what to do before sending the second letter.  I would do my best to determine if his target audience read any blogs that are likely to carry the story.  And from my understanding of the story today, the likelihood is low.  So my advice to Jack would be to ignore it and carry on.

However, if it does become a bigger issue then it may be that Cheryl Waller has the best idea to revel in the light of the PR while you make the money. Cheryl, is the one of the real estate professionals who took part and she has a very different view of this.  She says in part:

I honestly do not think that this campaign was designed in-house. He is using a very specific (and touchy) direct marketing approach, yes, based on exploiting people’s fears and ruffling feathers. It’s actually quite effective, which your email here proves. The style, the follow-up, the post-it note.. I have seen it all before. I’ve gone to workshops specifically on this style of copywriting.

Her contribution was long and detailed and worth a read.  I don’t happen to agree with Cheryl’s perspective, I simply think that Jack is not that clever in his marketing efforts.  But I could be wrong.

All in all, this was a great experience, and I’m truly thankful to my friends who gave me their time and their wisdom to help me with this.  This was a lot of fun and I will do it again in the future.

Tanks for reading,

Chris

]]> http://www.1goodreason.com/blog/2008/07/14/making-lemonade-small-business-crisis-management/feed/ 2 http://www.1goodreason.com/blog/2008/06/16/stop-lying-to-me-google/ http://www.1goodreason.com/blog/2008/06/16/stop-lying-to-me-google/#comments Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:45:39 +0000 Chris Kieff http://www.1goodreason.com/blog/?p=135 I have a client who is very cautious with his credit cards on the internet. Perhaps, hyper-cautious is a better definition. For instance, he uses a pair of credit cards for all of his online purchases, and keeps their limits extremely low to avoid any possible fraud. Now this is a prudent policy that more people should emulate.

However, since this client also spends a few thousand dollars every month on Google AdWords advertising this can and frequently does lead to snafu’s. Regularly, his Google AdWords account issues the following warning:

From a Marketing and Management perspective this is a fine way for you to inform your client of an extremely import issue. Unless of course, it’s a lie.

In the two years I’ve been running this client’s AdWords account the ads have stopped exactly one time. And the time that they stopped the message didn’t alter one iota. Yet the “Your Ads are not running…” message is displayed at least once a month. I’ve seen this message on numerous other client accounts both large and small. And it never actually reflects a stoppage unless the account is seriously behind in payment.

In case you are not familiar with the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” It’s about raising the alarm when there is no emergency. The moral of the story is that you should only SCREAM FIRE, WHEN THERE’S AN ACTUAL FIRE!

So my question is this;

Why does Google, typically a sensitive and intelligent company resort to crying wolf like this?And does it damage their customer relations?

I think they cry wolf because they rationally and scientifically tested different messages and found this to be the most effective. And they want effectiveness because stopping ads directly impacts their bottom line cash flow. However, scientific web analytics often overlooks the psychological impact on the client.

I do think that it damages their customer relations in several ways.

• It makes Google seem more monolithic, uncaring and machine like. Hard to do for a monolithic machine driven corporation, but true none the less for those who are impacted.
• It desensitizes clients to real warnings when they occur in the future. (the last one didn’t mean anything.)
• It creates a hole in the “Infallible Mystique” Google has built around it’s reputation. Which may be the most serious blow of all.
• Frankly, Google I’m tired of being treated like a child. Treat me like an adult and tell me the ads are going to stop if I don’t do something. As a Google Certified Advertising Professional why do I get the same message that Joe’s Bait Shop gets about account status?

How could Google or any company fix this?

1. Tailor messages to account levels. Higher spending accounts should receive more professional messaging. Especially for Google- Certified Advertising Professionals- (who studied for, took, and passed your test and paid your fees) should receive professional level reporting and warnings.
2. Treat your customers like adults. Amazingly, when treated like adults the vast majority actually respond like adults. However, when treated like children…
3. Don’t lie. (Remember the old corporate motto Google? “Do no evil” Many of us feel lies are evil, and the beginning of a slippery slope.)
4. Don’t lie to your customers. (Do I really need to expand on this concept?)

These are my thoughts on this GoogleBoy Who Cried Wolf story, what are yours?

It seems that spyware creator Zango is suing Anti-Spyware vendor Kaspersky Lab because their software removes Zango’s spyware! Zango claims that removing their spyware from someone’s computer damages their business relationship with that consumer (well duh!) And the stupid broken US Justice system is siding with Zango by letting the suit go on.

The National Business Coalition on Ecommerce and Privacy (I hate them just from the name) is siding with Zango. I find it very interesting that the Coalition doesn’t operate a website. Silly me to have thought that an organization concerned with Ecommerce would have a website! I guess that would require them to publicly state their purpose and goals. According to Media Post; The Coalition’s members include major companies like Eastman Kodak, JP Morgan Chase and Experian. Perhaps one of them can explain the organization?

Zango has been successfully beaten by the Federal Trade Commission. Here’s the kicker, the Sub-Title of the Zango article on the FTC’s web site is:

[Zango] Will Give Up $3 Million in Ill-Gotten Gains for Unfair and Deceptive Adware Downloads

When was the last time you heard the government say “Ill gotten gains” about anyone? Let’s face it, the FTC has a lousy record of successfully prosecuting anyone for anything. If you’re so bad that the FTC successfully got you to pay $3 Million in fines, well you’ve got to be extra horrible Zango.

As a New Yorker, (I live less than 8 miles from Ground Zero) I’m concerned by the dependence we have on computers and our abysmal failure to protect them. I feel that it’s everyone’s duty to protect your computer from being taken over by someone with malicious intent. It is inevitable that a cyber terror attack will come. And organizations with shortsighted self serving, “it’s not my duty to protect your PC” attitudes that insist on allowing this kind of activity to continue should be publicly condemned and ridiculed.

So do your part and help to publicly condemn and ridicule The National Business Coalition on Ecommerce and Privacy. If you are a part of a company who is a member of the “Coalition” voice your objection. If you are in need of anti-spyware, consider Kaspersky Lab because they will need deep pockets to help them with their legal bills. In other words- DO SOMETHING! Don’t just let this kind of crap go on.

Tanks for reading,

Chris

So I went to the Blogger Social 08 this weekend and had an incredible time meeting the most amazing people in the universe. And no, I’m not exaggerating, I’ve met nearly everyone in the universe and this group was the best! Anyway, I digress sorry. So we went on this great New York harbor cruise. And I came up with this nerd joke and took pictures of everyone (in the bs08 group) on the boat. After the cruise I went home about 4 PM and I knew I only had a short time to play on the PC before I had to head back into the city for the diner at 6PM.

Now I had seen this video created by CK Kerley and this one too. And CB Whittmore suggested that I check out Animoto. So with 2 hours to kill, and wanting to put the photos up for the group to share I decided to try it out.

WARNING- mildly technical content ahead. I got the photos out of the camera and onto my hard disk. Then I realized that I needed to shrink them in size so I used Irfanview that I’ve mentioned before. I used the batch function to resize 46 photos in one quick job. It took Irfanview less than 30 seconds!

Next I uploaded the 46 photos to Animoto which only took a couple of minutes. And then I had to choose music. I checked out their music selections and decided I should have something better in my library. Then I decided after wasting 15 minutes that some of their canned techno stuff really would work best.

So back to Animoto’s music choices and I selected something up beat then I hit the Create Video button. Now here is my only complaint with the service. I choose the Free 30 second short video first. And it created a video that didn’t have all of my pictures in it. They should tell you that before you wait the 10 minutes or so it takes to create the video. Or even more importantly after the video is created. If I wasn’t paying close attention I would not have noticed.

After the first attempt I purchased a $3 unlimited video, (only $3 bucks- this is so cool!). Then I edited the first video and made a new one. The second video turned out great. I wrote a quick blog post, tongue firmly planted in cheek and posted the video.

Next I changed my clothes and ran off to the evening’s festivities. My only frustration was that the video couldn’t be viewed on an iPhone or Blackberry. But this is not the fault of Animoto, it’s the fault of Apple and RIM.

In about 1 hour I had signed up, uploaded 46 photos, created and then recreated the video and posted it on my blog. For this accomplishment Animoto is amazing!

However, the story doesn’t end there. The next day, I spent a little time playing with Animoto again, because I realized that I’d left out a few photos, (including yours truly!) So I had to upload new pictures and remake the video again. Then I tried the YouTube option and that also worked like a charm.

It was simple and straight forward. I have to say that the makers of Animoto have done an excellent job of creating an interface that is simple, direct and easy to use.

And please remember that I have no connection with Animoto at all (yet, call me- OK?). I had never used the service before Saturday. I found my entire experience to enjoyable and simple with stunning results.

Animoto is One Good Way to show off your otherwise boring pictures!